Teammates at the same club fighting while on the pitch are by no means a novel development in football. Sometimes players clash due to on-field issues such as the case between Hugo Lloris and Son Heung-min at Tottenham in 2020 when the duo squared up to one another as Lloris blamed the South Korean for Spurs conceding a late goal before half-time.
In other cases, the clash could also take place during training sessions before matches as it did between Neymar and Nelson Semedo at Barcelona in 2017 when the pair were spotted quarrelling right in the last few weeks before the Brazilian left club for PSG.
It did look like another training ground bust occurred a few days ago in the Brazilian national team camp as images emerged of Vinicius Jr and Richarlison going at each other by pulling at each other shirts and having to be separated by their compatriots such as Neymar and Dani Alves.
The photos of the clash were widely circulated by numerous media outlets and both the Real Madrid star and the Everton forward came under heavy criticism from football fans for what was perceived to be hot-headed behaviour.
However, in reality, there was no altercation between the two players as revealed now from footage taken of the training session in question. In the entire clip of what transpired at the Brazil camp, all of Vinicius, Neymar and Dani Alves can be seen joking around with Richarlison who himself is seen smiling and following this the video ends with all four players walking away in smiles.
Perhaps it was the case that the Everton man pulled a cheeky skill in the preceding training move. But at no point was any ill intent involved from any of them. Only when one freezes the clip at a specific point, without the rest of the video as context would it appear as if Vinicius and Richarlison were actually fighting.
With these revelations, both players now stand vindicated while the Twitter handles that initially reported on the serious altercation have now drawn flak for misinterpreting the events at the Brazil camp to ardent football fans around the world.
